Spokane Friends Meeting

Inaugural addresses are important. Typically a new President announces the priorities of their administration. But of course it’s more than priorities, it’s also a vision, a vision for what the country can and should be. President Abraham Lincoln used his second inaugural address to name the evil of slavery, the toll it had exacted in human flesh and warfare, and the need to stay the course and resolve both the war and its cause.

Luke treats us with the first recorded words of Jesus. It is difficult to exaggerate the significance of Jesus’ sermon offered from the desk in the synagogue in Nazareth which we find in Luke 4:14 and following. Unlike Mark and Matthew, Luke’s rendition has this as the first explicit public event of Jesus’ ministry. What makes this scene very important to understanding who Jesus is and what he is up to is that this is Jesus’ inaugural address. Here Jesus launches his ministry from his hometown synagogue.

Our text today is often called, “The Rejection of Jesus at Nazareth.”  The remarkable thing is that in the first half of the story there is no indication of rejection.  At the outset we hear that Jesus is returning from his wilderness sparring with the devil “filled with the power of the Holy Spirit” and that he is “praised by everyone.”  It reports that his listeners “all speak well of him and were amazed at his gracious words.”  Rejection?  Hardly, at least not in this first half of the story.

14Then Jesus, filled with the power of the Spirit, returned to Galilee, and a report about him spread through all the surrounding country. 15He began to teach in their synagogues and was praised by everyone. 16When he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, he went to the synagogue on the sabbath day, as was his custom. He stood up to read, 17and the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him. He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written: 18“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, 19to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” 20And he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant, and sat down. The eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him. 21Then he began to say to them, “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.” 22All spoke well of him and were amazed at the gracious words that came from his mouth. They said, “Is not this Joseph’s son?”

We Christians love how Jesus combined passages from Isaiah 61 and 58 and then proclaimed that the scripture is fulfilled at that moment. And why wouldn’t we, given that it is an announcement of the year of Jubilee that arrives with Jesus, the time in which we will see the hungry fed, the imprisoned released, the blind healed, and the oppressed lifted? Jesus’ hometown audience loved the quote and the sermon, too … at first.

So what kind of vision do we hear in Jesus’ address? It is an announcement of his mission. It is a description of the kingdom of God. It is a promise of God’s aid and presence. And all of this and more is summarized by the words good news. But it is not “good news” in general. If we listen closely we will hear that this good news is only good if you are willing to admit what is hard in your life, what is lacking, what has been most difficult. It is good news for the poor. It is not just release, but release to those who are captive, sight to those who are blind, freedom to those who are oppressed. Jesus’ words challenge us to choose to hear that he has not come simply to save us individually, apart from one another, or privately, through our personal belief, but he comes for us all, and is revealed in us and through us, as we reach out to embrace one another’s needs.

Reaching out to embrace the needs of others — that’s where things turned ugly. With the balance of Luke’s story the adulation evaporates.

23He said to them, “Doubtless you will quote to me this proverb, ‘Doctor, cure yourself!’ And you will say, ‘Do here also in your hometown the things that we have heard you did at Capernaum.’” 24And he said, “Truly I tell you, no prophet is accepted in the prophet’s hometown. 25But the truth is, there were many widows in Israel in the time of Elijah, when the heaven was shut up three years and six months, and there was a severe famine over all the land; 26yet Elijah was sent to none of them except to a widow at Zarephath in Sidon. 27There were also many lepers in Israel in the time of the prophet Elisha, and none of them was cleansed except Naaman the Syrian.” 28When they heard this, all in the synagogue were filled with rage. 29They got up, drove him out of the town, and led him to the brow of the hill on which their town was built, so that they might hurl him off the cliff. 30But he passed through the midst of them and went on his way.

After the crowd praises Jesus, he, in a sense, tells them, “Oh, sorry. I didn’t mean you. The day of Jubilee isn’t for you.” For Luke, salvation is understood primarily in social and not individualistic terms. To be more specific, for Luke that salvation is a reversal of the social order. Thus, for example, in Luke’s version of the Beatitudes, Jesus not only pronounces blessing on the poor, the hungry, the weeping, and the hated, he also pronounces woes on the rich, the filled, the laughing, and the respected (Luke 6:20-26). Those on the bottom of society experience this salvation with rejoicing while those on top experience it in the form of God’s judgment and justice.

In the second half of the story Jesus challenges the hometown crowd’s view about who is on bottom of society and who is on top. He reminds the crowd that even when there had been great need in Israel, God sent the prophet Elijah to the Gentile widow in Zarephath and the prophet Elisha to the Gentile leper, Naaman. By implication, the prophet Jesus is not sent to the synagogue in Nazareth but is sent from there to Gentiles. The crowd’s reaction to Jesus changes so rapidly and so radically it almost makes our head swim.

Not unlike Jesus’ hometown crowd, we too want to claim Jesus as our own. We profess faith in Jesus as the Christ and strive to follow Christ in our individual and corporate lives. But this text pushes us to expand our view and push us out of our comfort zone in claiming Jesus’ allegiance to us over against others. Jesus doesn’t accuse the synagogue of such. He does not imply that he turns to the Gentiles because those in Nazareth reject him. They reject him because he turns to the Gentiles.

Can we learn from the ancient crowd in the text and embrace Christ in this turn to those outside the usual boundaries of the sacred community? Indeed, the church can follow Christ into contemporary “Gentile” territory offering aid and acceptance to the widows and lepers of the world. In other words, as this text delineates Luke’s understanding of Jesus’ mission, it can also serve as our own inaugural statement defining the mission of the church today.

Never before have we as a nation been as deeply divided as we are in our responses to refugees, the poor, and minorities. Ancient as Jesus’ words are, and belonging as they do to a culture almost completely unfamiliar in our world, we still hear in those words a ring of truth, that these are the priorities we too must embrace, and the Holy Spirit of Christ anoints us all to this ministry.

Douglas Wood wrote a wonderful story called, Old Turtle and the Broken Truth.

One night truth fells from the stars. And as it fell, it broke into two pieces—one piece blazed off through the sky and the other fell straight to the ground. And then one day a man stumbled upon the gravity-drawn piece and found that engraved on it were the words, “You are loved.” It made him feel good, so he kept it and shared it with the people of his tribe and it made them feel warm and happy. It became their most prized possession, and they called it “The Truth.”

Over time those who had the truth grew afraid of those who didn’t, those who were different from them. And those who didn’t have it coveted it. Soon people are fighting wars over The Truth, trying to capture it for themselves.

A little girl who was troubled by the growing violence, greed, and destruction in her once peaceful world went on a journey—through the Mountains of Imagining, the River of Wondering Why, and the Forest of Finding Out—to speak with Old Turtle, the wise counselor. Old Turtle told her that the Truth was broken and missing a piece, the piece that shot off into the night sky so long ago. Together they searched for it, and when they found it the little girl puts the jagged piece of truth in her pocket and returned to her people. She tried to explain it but no one would listen or understand. Finally a raven flew the shard of broken truth to the top of a tower where the other piece had been ensconced for safety, and the rejoined pieces shined their full message: “You are loved / and so are they.” And the people begin to comprehend. And the earth began to heal.

Among the four canonical gospels, John doesn’t mention Jesus’ baptism. Mark’s Gospel actually begins with a very brief description of the event. Matthew summarizes the event in four verses. Jesus comes to John who demurs then consents. Once Jesus is out of the water the heavens open, the spirit of the Lord descends on Jesus like a dove and a voice from heaven and a voice from heaven says: “This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased.”

Luke takes over twenty verses, sets the stage with dates, people and places. But let me read it. Luke 3:1-22

3In the fifteenth year of the reign of Emperor Tiberius, when Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea, and Herod was ruler of Galilee, and his brother Philip ruler of the region of Ituraea and Trachonitis, and Lysanias ruler of Abilene, 2during the high priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas, the word of God came to John son of Zechariah in the wilderness. 3He went into all the region around the Jordan, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins, 4as it is written in the book of the words of the prophet Isaiah, “The voice of one crying out in the wilderness: ‘Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight. 5Every valley shall be filled, and every mountain and hill shall be made low, and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough ways made smooth; 6and all flesh shall see the salvation of God.’”

7John said to the crowds that came out to be baptized by him, “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come?

What John says next to the gathered is truly important:

8Bear fruits worthy of repentance. Do not begin to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our ancestor’; for I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children to Abraham. 9Even now the ax is lying at the root of the trees; every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.” 10And the crowds asked him, “What then should we do?”

That’s a most interesting question. “What then should we do?” Is there some ritual we should perform, some sacrifice to prepare and offer, some special set of words to repeat, some belief to be pronounced? Listen to John’s reply:

11In reply he said to them, “Whoever has two coats must share with anyone who has none; and whoever has food must do likewise.” 12Even tax collectors came to be baptized, and they asked him, “Teacher, what should we do?” 13He said to them, “Collect no more than the amount prescribed for you.” 14Soldiers also asked him, “And we, what should we do?” He said to them, “Do not extort money from anyone by threats or false accusation, and be satisfied with your wages.”

It’s an interesting collection of people: those who had clothing and food beyond their own needs but also Soldiers and Tax collectors – most hated among the population and all had come from the same river, the same river from which Jesus will soon reportedly come.

15As the people were filled with expectation, and all were questioning in their hearts concerning John, whether he might be the Messiah, 16John answered all of them by saying, “I baptize you with water; but one who is more powerful than I is coming; I am not worthy to untie the thong of his sandals. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.

That’s been a pretty important verse in Quaker history – the strongly held position that the Baptism of Christ is that of the Holy Spirit whose fire will burn away the chaff of our lives. That Quakers have not employed water baptism has been cause for some to deny that we are Christian.

17His winnowing fork is in his hand, to clear his threshing floor and to gather the wheat into his granary; but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.” 18So, with many other exhortations, he proclaimed the good news to the people.

That sounds like a conclusion but then comes two sentences that seems out of sequence with how we understand things to have played out.

19But Herod the ruler, who had been rebuked by him because of Herodias, his brother’s wife, and because of all the evil things that Herod had done, 20added to them all by shutting up John in prison.

And then Luke goes back to his narrative:

21Now when all the people were baptized, and when Jesus also had been baptized and was praying, the heaven was opened, 22and the Holy Spirit descended upon him in bodily form like a dove. And a voice came from heaven,

Matthew is clear that Jesus was out of the river before the divine proclamation of God’s being pleased with Jesus is heard but Luke intimates that it was long after – after all the people and Jesus had been baptized and John was locked up in Herod’s jail – while Jesus was praying the Holy Spirit, descended on him in bodily dovelike form and the voice from heaven says: “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.”

John made real political enemies, especially irritating Herod’s second wife, Herodias, (Luke 3:20). He called Herod’s marriage to his half brother Phillip’s wife an abomination. This priest-prophet baptizer took the Torah seriously: “You shall not uncover the nakedness of your brother’s wife; it is your brother’s nakedness” (Leviticus 18:16). Because of John’s condemnation of Herod he was imprisoned, effectively removing him from public life. We don’t hear about John’s execution until much later in Luke’s narrative (see also Luke 9:9).

Luke interpreted John’s baptizing mission in light of Isaiah’s image of “a voice” who prepares “the way of the Lord.” Indeed, John enters the story as any Israelite prophet would: “the word of God came to John, son of Zechariah.” We see the same pattern with Jeremiah 1:4; 33:1; Ezekiel 1:3; Jonah 1:1. This priest’s son grew up in the wilderness and entered public life as a prophet. Furthermore, as a prophet he scolded those who came calling them: “You brood of vipers!” (John 3:7). John challenged the special “covenant” Israel had because of Abraham, as if that spiritual heritage was all that mattered (3:8-9). John questioned what people did. Jesus, too, will provide a prophetic voice and action, as he baptizes “by fire,” which will be utilized for the removal of the “chaff” (3:17).

Repentance isn’t associated with religious ritual or belief, it is associated with “acts” of repentance: specifically, John told the crowds to share their goods (Luke 3:11; see also Acts 2) and be fair in one’s profession (3:12-14). Unlike his Gospel counterparts, Luke names “tax-collectors” and “soldiers” as people who received John’s baptism . The Baptist did not tell “soldiers” to lay down their weapons; he highlighted theirs as well as the tax collectors’ desire for greed.

According to the Jewish Encyclopedia John’s baptism is to result in holy living and to prepare for the attainment of a closer communion with God. This thought is expressed in the well-known passage in Josephus in which he speaks of John the Baptist: “The washing would be acceptable to him, if they made use of it, not in order to the putting away of some sins, but for the purification of the body; supposing still that the soul was thoroughly purified beforehand by righteousness.” John symbolized the call to repentance by Baptism in the Jordan; and the same measure for attaining holiness was employed by the Essenes, whose ways of life John also observed. Josephus says of his instructor Banus, an Essene, that he “bathed himself in cold water frequently, both by night and by day”, and that the same practice was observed by all the Essenes.

Despite imagining John waste deep in the river he declares that the one who would come after him would not baptize with water, but with the Holy Ghost. A semblance of that notion is expressed in the Talmud that the Holy Spirit could be drawn upon as water is drawn from a well (based upon Isa.12: 3). And there is a somewhat Jewish tinge even to the prophecy of the evangelists Matthew (3: 11) and Luke (3:16), who declare that Jesus will baptize with fire as well as with the Holy Ghost; for, according to Rabbi Abbahu, true Baptism is performed with fire. According to the Christian writer Justin, the expression that the person baptized is illuminated has the same significance as is implied in telling a proselyte to Judaism, after his bath, that he now belongs to Israel, the people beloved of God.

While the balance of the chapter is on John’s mission, the climax is still Jesus’ baptism. And God’s announcement of Jesus’ identity (as “God’s son”) was the significant event of the event, the identity the angel had claimed in Luke 1:35. And then, for some reason, Luke doesn’t place “John” at the scene. In Luke’s telling the story he names no baptizer. In the narrative story-line, just before Jesus’ baptism, Luke described Herod’s imprisonment of John. In narrative time John’s imprisonment seems to occur before Jesus came to be baptized. It is an unusual set-up.

For Luke, By the time of Jesus’ baptism, John’s voice in the wilderness (3:4) was replaced by a heavenly voice (3:22) and John’s body was replaced by the Spirit’s “body” in the form of a dove. John’s absence from the baptism scene emphasizes the Spirit’s “baptism” or empowerment of Jesus and God’s acknowledgment of Jesus’ identity as God’s Son (3:21-22).

As Isaiah announces, the coming Messiah will reveal the “salvation of God”. Many contemporary readers of the Gospel narratives usually associate the story of “salvation” with the coming and dying of Jesus. But the language of “salvation” meant much more for first century Jews when we recall Simeon seeing God’s “salvation” in the baby Jesus (2:30). For ancient Jews, Zechariah’s words are representative: “(God) has raised up a mighty savior for us … that we would be saved from our enemies and from the hand of all who hate us” (1:69, 71). (1:74). Let’s hear that again: The Messiah’s salvation would affect their political realities so that their religious ones would also be unhindered, “that we, being rescued from the hands of our enemies, might serve him without fear”

Jesus’ public mission initiates a new stage in God’s plan of dealing with humankind. Repentance implies a preparation of one’s heart, mind, and entire attitude that God desires to engage God’s creation. Then, the Spirit will also prepare the way of the Lord!

As we begin this new year with new challenges and as the Holy Spirit comes first to burn away the accumulated chaff of our lives we too ask with those baptized by John: “What then should we do?” John’s reply is: Bear fruits worthy of repentance.

Heavenly Father, With joy and awe we praise you for claiming us as your sons and daughters, and for pouring your Holy Spirit upon us. Help us to prepare this earth for your glory, and shine your light on all your faithful children, for the sake of the one whose birth and baptism brought renewal and transformation to this world, Jesus Christ. Amen

Today’s passage is the climax of Paul’s letter to the Romans. In the 8th verse he describe the mission of Christ. He indicates that Christ “has become a servant of the circumcised.” By the ‘circumcised’ he meant the Jews. And then, in a striking parallel, Paul describes himself as a servant or officiant of Christ to the nations, that is the rest of the whole non-Jewish world (15:16). What Christ came to accomplish for the Jews, Paul now parallels in his work with the nations, as an envoy of Christ. He writes in Romans 15:4 For whatever was written in former days was written for our instruction, so that by steadfastness and by the encouragement of the scriptures we might have hope.

For Paul the scriptures recall God’s promises, given to the Jews and now extended to the nations. In his day the scriptures were called the Mikra, a Hebrew word for “that which is read” in the synagogues which was the way most people knew anything of them. It was also referred to as the Tanakh which is a Hebrew alliteration for the three sections of the Hebrew scriptures with which it consisted:, the Torah which is the first five books of Moses, the Nevi’im or the Prophets and the Ketuvim, the writings. In Paul’s Rabbinical studies he would have learned the Hebrew scriptures in this form. His Greek speaking readers however would have been more familiar with the Koine Greek Septuagint which had been translated some two hundred years before in Alexandria, Egypt.

So he writes: that by steadfastness and by the encouragement of the scriptures we might have hope.

Steadfastness coupled with the encouragement of scripture gives people hope. There is a traceable thread of hope throughout Paul’s letter to the Romans: He tells u that Abraham, the model of faithfulness, “hopes against hope” that God will make good on the promise of an heir, despite his and Sarah’s barrenness and advanced age. Just preceding our passage for today Paul writes that through Jesus Christ we also “rejoice in hope of sharing the glory of God…” indeed, our suffering in the present, far from dashing our hopes, disciplines us in patient endurance, building a character capable of hope (5:2-5). Again, in Romans 8:18-25, the present is a time of suffering, but we live in confident hope of the redemption of our body, the liberation of all creation from futility, decay and death. This hope, says Paul, is for something that cannot be seen at present, “for who hopes for what they see? But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience.”

So he continues: May the God of steadfastness and encouragement grant you to live in harmony with one another, in accordance with Christ Jesus, 6so that together you may with one voice glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Paul establishes that the basis for hope is the character of God. And the goal of the encouragement and steadfastness is so that we, the community to which Paul writes, the Church, will live in harmony with one another and our living in harmony has an outcome, a purpose: it is that together with one voice we glorify God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. What does that say when the church becomes known for dissonance, incongruity and disagreement?

Paul instructs the Christian community of Rome to: 7Welcome one another, therefore, just as Christ has welcomed you, for the glory of God. 8For I tell you that Christ has become a servant of the circumcised on behalf of the truth of God in order that he might confirm the promises given to the patriarchs, 9and in order that the nations might glorify God for his mercy. As it is written, “Therefore I will confess you among the nations, and sing praises to your name”; 10and again he says, “Rejoice, O nations, with his people”; 11and again, “Praise the Lord, all you nations, and let all the peoples praise him”; 12and again Isaiah says, “The root of Jesse shall come, the one who rises to rule the nations; in him the nations shall hope.”

13May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that you may abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.

Paul declares that Christ has welcomed us, all of us, and brought us home to God and to each other. To open our arms to those who otherwise are strangers and even enemies is nothing short of a miracle of grace. The experience of that welcome is the way we learn that “hope does not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us” (Romans 5:5).

So by the time we get to this grand finale of Romans we have learned that hope and steadfastness are inseparable companions, and that through the activity of the Holy Spirit God is the source of both. Paul finds reason for hope in the way he sees God working through his own ministry, by bringing the nations to faith in Christ the Messiah of Israel. Just as the scriptures which brought hope were of Hebrew origin, so is the concept of the Messiah of Israel, the anointed one, Christ Jesus. Paul is declaring that such salvation is not limited to the Jews – but to ‘the gentiles’ or, as the Greek more correctly says “to the nations.” Such universal worship of God shows that God is keeping the promises found in scripture. This is so important because in it we see how Paul is intent on spreading it beyond the culture of birth of Hebrew ethical monotheism. In v. 12 he says the nation’s, that is the non-Jewish world) also hope in the Messiah from the line of David, and in v. 13, the final and familiar blessing sums up the passage, and indeed, the letter as a whole with a wonderful benediction: “May the God of hope fill you will all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope.”

In the communities he has founded or with which he communicates, he hopes to make real what has only been promised in scriptures and aims to create an environment where nations and God’s people can worship the God of Israel together, “with one voice” (Romans 15:6). The last quote (Isaiah 11:10 LXX) indicates how the Messiah will rule over the Gentiles and how the Gentiles will be included in the hope given to God’s people by the God of Israel. This inclusion also means that the nations can now rejoice alongside God’s people (15:9 and 15:10).

Paul reminds us of the scripture’s witness to the truthfulness and faithfulness of God. Second, he turns our attention to God’s presence in their midst, precisely and especially in the experience of mutual love and service between people who previously were enemies. “Welcome one another,” Paul writes, “as Christ has welcomed you, for the glory of God”

For the community in Rome, this means concretely that the Christ-believers have to embody an ethic of hospitality towards each other (Romans 15:7). At the heart of the identity of the community, there needs to be an attitude of welcome and openness. In Romans 15:5, Paul’s wish for the community describes the content of this life in community marked by hospitality: it is about “thinking the same thing.”

The purpose is unity of thought, but Paul adds that this unity of thought happens “among each other,” according to Christ Jesus.” The unity of thought does not mean that the diversity (“among each other”) disappears. However, the criterion of unity among diversity is Christ Jesus. If Christ remains the decisive factor for the community, then the community can reach unity through its diversity and thus glorify God (15:6). Glorification is important but has to be done as a community.

The house churches in Rome, mixed communities comprised of Jews and non-Jews, it meant that the pagan members of the communities have more value than the Jewish members, that the uncircumcised are any less recipients of God’s grace. Unity according to Christ does not mean that differences are erased. Members do not have to conform to one particular pattern of behavior, but they do have to realize that the essential and defining character of their identity is now Christ. In like manner we too are called to this hospitality. This hospitality is not a lukewarm sort of welcome that would translate in letting anyone come in as long as they adapt to what is considered the “strong” position in the church (Romans 15:1), conform to the customs of the established church, or follow the agenda established by the ones in charge inside the community.

Rather, the welcome Paul has in mind threatens the status of the ones who offer it. It pushes them to the threshold of the community and forces them to accept those who come as they are, without seeking to first transform them so that they adapt to the dominant practice. The criterion is the ethos of Christ, and this criterion is one that does not seek to change those who come to Christ.

How do we experience and proclaim the hope that Paul proclaims? How do we answer the question posed with such intensity by those battling intractable disease and disability? How do we speak to the doubts voiced by those who face tragedy and mystery, oppression and injustice?

May the God of steadfastness and encouragement grant you to live in harmony with one another, in accordance with Christ Jesus, 6so that together you may with one voice glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Romans 13:8 Owe no one anything, except to love one another; for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law.“

Talking about flying in the face of a usury based culture… “Owe no one anything.” How would you interpret such a mandate? Does it mean to pay your debts? What would that mean about a declaration of bankruptcy? Don’t get yourself indebted to another. Does being indebted make you obligated? I’ve been over my head in reading a Gonzaga Jesuit’s new book called ‘Rethinking Christian Forgiveness‘. There’s this interesting connection between giving and forgiving. To give some one something, according to some, creates an obligation that needs to be satisfied. By the same token, to have harmed someone creates an obligation to replace, repair, resolve the indebtedness that was created in the action that did harm. In the second case the courts wrestle with a huge problem, that of persons serving time needing to make reparations and being incarcerated and unable to work the interest on the debt continues to grow and once the sentence is served the offender has this enormous debt that is beyond their capacity to retire.

But that’s not the focus of Paul’s discourse. He clarifies things by providing an interesting caveat: “don’t owe anyone anything expect to love one another.” O.K. we can understand that. But the phrase goes on and the Greek has a surprise hiding in the word we have translated ‘another’ that for some reason doesn’t get reflected in our English translation. A literal translation of the text says that it is in loving the “different one” that the law of love is fulfilled. Paul is really pulling our chain. Go ahead, let you mind consider the implications or the consequences of loving the different one.

In the next verse Paul lists several of the Ten Commandments. He writes: 9The commandments, “You shall not commit adultery; You shall not murder; You shall not steal; You shall not covet”; and any other commandment, are summed up in this word, “Love your neighbor as yourself.” He says “Adultery, murder, theft, envy and any other commandment you’d like to name are summed up in this word: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” We know that such an expression wasn’t unique to Paul. As a Torah scholar he knew it from what he would have known from the Law of the Priest, we know it as Leviticus 19:9-18.

9When you reap the harvest of your land, you shall not reap to the very edges of your field, or gather the gleanings of your harvest. 10You shall not strip your vineyard bare, or gather the fallen grapes of your vineyard; you shall leave them for the poor and the alien: I am the Lord your God.

11You shall not steal; you shall not deal falsely; and you shall not lie to one another. 12And you shall not swear falsely by my name, profaning the name of your God: I am the Lord.

13You shall not defraud your neighbor; you shall not steal; and you shall not keep for yourself the wages of a laborer until morning. 14You shall not revile the deaf or put a stumbling block before the blind; you shall fear your God: I am the Lord.

15You shall not render an unjust judgment; you shall not be partial to the poor or defer to the great: with justice you shall judge your neighbor. 16You shall not go around as a slanderer among your people, and you shall not profit by the blood of your neighbor: I am the Lord.

17You shall not hate in your heart anyone of your kin; you shall reprove your neighbor, or you will incur guilt yourself. 18You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against any of your people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself: I am the Lord.

The context is quite a description of how we are to treat others. It is the very core of ethical monotheism.

Food is to be left in the field and vineyard for the poor and the alien, those who have to glean in order to survive; stealing, wage theft, dealing fraudulently, swearing, making fun or taking advantage of the disabled, specifically the deaf or blind are proscribed as is judging someone based on their wealth or position. Did you catch that about not benefiting from the blood of your neighbor? Can you imagine what that might mean? One more thing, bearing a grudge and taking revenge against anyone is also forbidden.

We have no idea how old is this language. But we have every reason to believe that it circulated in oral form from the time immediately after the Exodus until, five hundred years before the Apostle Paul, it became hard copy. Interesting enough Jesus was of the same opinion. Remember when Jesus was asked what was the greatest commandment in the law? He conflates the famous in passage Deuteronomy 6:5: 4Hear, O Israel: The Lord is our God, the Lord alone. 5You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might. with the last line of the Leviticus passage you shall love your neighbor as yourself.

Of course there is the perennial issue about who is one’s neighbor. I like the fact that the Greek uses a word best translated ‘nigh one’, one who is near in time, place or relationship. How about that ‘nigh one’ and “neighbor.” He clarifies that by saying “Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore, love is the fulfilling of the law.” Being a Torah scholar, fulfillment of the Law was a big thing with Paul.

That’s the first half of our text for today. So after Paul instructs us about owing no one anything but the requirement of loving them he throws us a curve: 11Besides this, he writes you know what time it is, how it is now the moment for you to wake from sleep. Paul calls us to open our eyes, pick up our ears, our minds and our hearts so we become fully aware. And here is why:

08For salvation is nearer to us now than when we became believers; 12the night is far gone, the day is near. Let us then lay aside the works of darkness and put on the armor of light; 13let us live honorably as in the day, not in reveling and drunkenness, not in debauchery and licentiousness, not in quarreling and jealousy. 14Instead, put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to gratify its desires.

Paul’s language suggests that some within the church may have been engaged in questionable living, living in ways that seem to thrive in the darkness of night. It’s an accusation of being complicit with the injustice, oppression and violence of the culture. One of the problems of living in the night is that you tend to want to sleep in the day. Paul is clear that people who put the flesh first have yet to wake up. Paul’s call is to open our eyes, our ears, our minds and our hearts.

What Paul points in our putting on the Lord Jesus Christ is, at least from a Quaker perspective is the work of the Holy Spirit in our lives, who clothes us, or fills us in such a spiritual gift, this gift of God’s radical love that carries us beyond our own nights,through and beyond our own desires of the flesh and to live not just for ourselves but for the neighbor. Such a Christian life is a daily practice, a continual exercise of practicing Christ’s presence in our life.

If you’d like a secular illustration go watch the movie The Matrix. Remember how the young computer hacker awakens to the reality that humanity has been imprisoned by a world of machines in a net work that harvests the heat and electrochemical energy of human bodies to power the machines themselves. The minds of humanity is busied within a artificial reality.

Paul’s call to wake up is a call to live in the light of day by putting on the Lord Jesus Christ. +Putting on Jesus is living with Jesus as the sole motivation driving us forward. I’ve got to tell you that a culture wrapped in darkness won’t take kindly to your meddling in their fraudulent schemes. When asked on the heels of the English Civil War which side Quakers were on, Edward Burrough, a wonderful early Quaker said, “We are not for names, nor men, nor titles of government, nor are we for this party, nor against the other…we are for justice and mercy and truth and peace, and true freedom, that these may be exalted in our nation.”

Called to be Saints

Paul’s letter to the Romans begins this way: 1:1Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ, called to be an apostle, set apart for the gospel of God, 2which he promised beforehand through his prophets in the holy scriptures, 3the gospel concerning his Son, who was descended from David according to the flesh 4and was declared to be Son of God with power according to the spirit of holiness by resurrection from the dead, Jesus Christ our Lord, 5through whom we have received grace and apostleship to bring about the obedience of faith among all the Gentiles for the sake of his name, 6including yourselves who are called to belong to Jesus Christ, 7To all God’s beloved in Rome, who are called to be saints: Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

Do you realize that Paul’s salutation to the church in Rome is one long, complex and confusing sentence in which he delineates his theology. We face several challenges that make it difficult for us to understand what Paul wrote, the first being simply trying to make sense out of such complex sentence structures. secondly, Paul wrote in the common Greek of his day attempting to translate Hebrew concepts into what was, for all intents and purposes, a foreign language, a language for which he had to coin words that had never existed before. And then, as we attempt to translate Paul’s ideas into more modern languages, we further distort those concepts. William Tyndale, somewhere around 1500, made the first English translation of Paul’s letters working from Greek texts. Up until then English translations were the result of further translating the Latin Vulgate into an English that most of us can’t understand today.

We make the erroneous assumption that what Paul penned were timeless and generally applicable advices when his intention was to address specific individuals and communities about specific situations. Unless we have an understanding of the cultural situation that Paul was addressing his words can not be applied with any validity to life in the 21st century. Of course there are those who argue that all we need to interpret scripture is scripture itself and while I’m a full supporter of the devotional practice of Lexio Divina, we can’t even understand our own attempts at communicating what’s on our minds without a grasp of context. But probably the biggest hurdle we face is our own theological bias. This is the predictable problem with putting too much faith in paraphrased editions and one of the weaknesses to which the translators of the New International Version admit.

All those are simpler issues with interpretation and translation and don’t begin to touch the more complex problems in understanding Paul. We know little of the Hebrew methods of teaching in which Paul learned and then employed. We know little of his understanding of Scripture from the perspective of a Pharisee. Remember he was proud to identify himself as a Pharisee of the Pharisees. To be a Pharisee was to be a separatist, the equivalent of being a member of the Holiness movement. And lastly, we don’t grasp the deeper mystical aspects of Paul’s Hebrew theology.

So, what was Paul getting to in these beginning words of the Letter to the Romans? I’ve worked over this lengthy sentence to try and discern the purposeful core of it. Why was it that it was important to write to the Romans that he was a servant of Jesus, called to be an apostle, set apart for the gospel? He says that he had received grace and apostleship for a singular purpose: to bring about the obedience of faith among all the Gentiles for the sake of his (Jesus’ ) name,

In the mid 19th century, in commenting on the Apostle Paul’s salutation in Romans 1, B. W. Johnson wrote: “In the Apostolic age there were no recognized believers but obedient believers.” No nominal Christians, no cultural Christians. The whole purpose of Paul’s ministry was to call Gentiles to the obedience of faith.

That’s an interesting phrase, isn’t it: “the obedience of faith.” Such a simple phrase challenges our ideas of how belief leads to sharing in God’s promise. While it is difficult to keep in mind in the midst of holiday celebrations, shopping, lights and decorations, and joyful carols, Advent is intended to be a season of fasting and there are a variety of ways that this time of contemplation works itself out in the season. Reflection on the violence and evil in the world and in our selves cause us to cry out to God to make things right—or as the composer of our Advent Hymn, O Come, O Come Emmanuel put it “to put death’s dark shadows to flight”. The discomfort of living in the exile of the present can make us want to escape to what must be a better place, to look forward to a future Exodus. And our own sinfulness and need for grace leads us to pray for the Holy Spirit to renew his work in conforming us into the image of Christ. Such a personal spiritual reformation doesn’t lead us to a Christianized nirvana, like a candle blown out. According to Paul, it leads to an obedience of faith; a commitment to work to continue Christ’s work, the work of the prophets before him; the effort to restore God’s creation.

We miss that when our understanding of faithfulness becomes a simple belief in being miraculously lifted from this plane of existence to enjoy a heavenly audience. Without a doubt, when the Church celebrates Advent she makes present this ancient expectancy of the Messiah but it isn’t about some futuristic coming but Christ coming now to empower us to the obedience of faith.

And dare we imagine what that might look like? One traditional goal of the Advent season is to make our souls fitting abodes for the Redeemer. Christ living in us.

Susan and I have been keeping our home ready for potential buyers – we’ve cleared away what seems tons of our possessions – they called it depersonalizing. When we began it was summer time. We’ve had to buy new winter coats because all our winter wear is buried somewhere in that container in the drive way. Each time someone comes to look we vacuum the carpets, swisher the hardwoods, polish woodwork, sinks and faucets. That’s like the beginning of Advent, getting ready for Christ to make Christ’s self known. It would be nice if it got easier but next, as Paul declares himself to be, we too become ‘a servant of Jesus Christ’. What’s next is to see the world and others through Christ’s eyes. It causes us to see how injustice, oppression, violence destroys God’s intention for creation. Now you can understand this phrase of bringing about the obedience of faith. We are called to challenge injustice, oppression and violence, not simply bemoan it or worse look past it.

Phil Gulley recently wrote: “Progress is not inevitable. It is not some great ideal toward which the universe magically bends. Fair play and progress are the result of dedicated people rolling up their sleeves and putting their hands to the plow. The universe will only bend toward justice if we make it so. It is not inevitable. It is the consequences of our unswerving dedication to a world restored. Justice is never a sure thing. The moment we think that justice is inevitable, with no effort on our part, is the moment it begins to recede.

“As Quakers, ours is a double call. Our first responsibility is to be vigilant for justice. When people are diminished, when their rights and dignity are threatened, we must not be silent and still. The second is to love those with whom we disagree, remembering that a nation’s moral stature is only secure when its citizens refuse to hate. As Quakers we must model the reconciliation we promote, even when,especially when, reconciliation has become a minor key in our nature’s song.”

A word that has been playing on my mind for the last week or so. It’s the adjective “obsequious.” While it’s not part of our common vocabulary and it’s a word with which we well may have to come to terms. It means to be excessively servile. Some synonyms are: subservient, submissive, slavish, even brown-nosing, boot-licking, smarmy, a noun might be a ‘toady.’ It’s the opposite of standing against injustice, oppression and violence. As a servant of Christ we are called to the obedience of faith for the sake of Christ’s name. It may be a hard row to hoe, but according to Paul you are called to be a saint, set apart for the gospel of God.

 
Called

The Book of Isaiah begins with Isaiah receiving a vision of the future of the kingdom of Judah. The vision of Isaiah son of Amoz, which he saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem in the days of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah.

2Hear, O heavens, and listen, O earth; for the Lord has spoken: I reared children and brought them up, but they have rebelled against me. 3The ox knows its owner, and the donkey its master’s crib; but Israel does not know, my people do not understand. 4Ah, sinful nation, people laden with iniquity, offspring who do evil, children who deal corruptly, who have forsaken the Lord, who have despised the Holy One of Israel, who are utterly estranged! 5Why do you seek further beatings? Why do you continue to rebel? The whole head is sick, and the whole heart faint. 6From the sole of the foot even to the head, there is no soundness in it, but bruises and sores and bleeding wounds; they have not been drained, or bound up, or softened with oil. 7Your country lies desolate, your cities are burned with fire; in your very presence aliens devour your land; it is desolate, as overthrown by foreigners. 8And daughter Zion is left like a booth in a vineyard, like a shelter in a cucumber field, like a besieged city.

At the beginning of the sixth chapter we read what is called: Isaiah’s Call. In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord sitting on a throne, high and lofty; and the hem of his robe filled the temple. 2Seraphs were in attendance above him; each had six wings: with two they covered their faces, and with two they covered their feet, and with two they flew. 3And one called to another and said: “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory.” 4The pivots on the thresholds shook at the voices of those who called, and the house filled with smoke.

5And I said: “Woe is me! I am lost, for I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips; yet my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts!” 6Then one of the seraphs flew to me, holding a live coal that had been taken from the altar with a pair of tongs. 7The seraph touched my mouth with it and said: “Now that this has touched your lips, your guilt has departed and your sin is blotted out.” 8Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, “Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?” And I said, “Here am I; send me!”

9And he said, “Go and say to this people: ‘Keep listening, but do not comprehend; keep looking, but do not understand.’ 10Make the mind of this people dull, and stop their ears, and shut their eyes, so that they may not look with their eyes, and listen with their ears, and comprehend with their minds, and turn and be healed.” 11Then I said, “How long, O Lord?” And he said: “Until cities lie waste without inhabitant, and houses without people, and the land is utterly desolate; 12until the Lord sends everyone far away, and vast is the emptiness in the midst of the land.

So, why is it that Isaiah’s call is in Chapter 6 rather than chapter 1? And why is it that his call is dated by the reign of King Uzziah of Judah? What does Uzziah have to do with it at all?

Since David united Israel and began his reign in 1010 God had great plans for his chosen people. In Isaiah chapter 2 we hear: “The word that Isaiah son of Amoz saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem. 2In days to come the mountain of the Lord’s house shall be established as the highest of the mountains, and shall be raised above the hills; all the nations shall stream to it. 3Many peoples shall come and say, “Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob; that he may teach us his ways and that we may walk in his paths.” For out of Zion shall go forth instruction, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem. 4He shall judge between the nations, and shall arbitrate for many peoples; they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more. 5O house of Jacob, come, let us walk in the light of the Lord!

After a good solid beginning things fell apart for Israel. The kingdom split into Judah and Israel and were plundered by their enemies. Idol worship became common place. The security and prosperity that Israel had known in its first one hundred years disappeared. The golden age had ended. It was 268 years later, with the rise of Jeroboam II in Israel and Uzziah in Judah, that harmony, prosperity and security finally returned. As Judah and Israel regained the status of a ‘superpower’ and the Temple and Jerusalem had become a national and religious center Isaiah anticipates the realization of Israel’s ultimate goal. During this prosperous time the prophets hoped for a national religious reawakening. For the first time in very long time a time as glorious as the days of David and Solomon, was achievable. The power and prosperity in the time of Uzziah promised to be the unfolding of an era in which Israel would be able to realize its biblical destiny as we just read from Isaiah chapter 2. They could become the source of guidance for all humankind.

Uzziah was 16 when he began a 52 year reign as king of Judah. The first 24 years of his reign were as co-regent with his father, Amaziah. His reign marked the height of Judah’s power. Early in his reign he stayed faithful to God but as II Chronicles 26 reports. But – well, let me simply read it:

But after Uzziah became powerful, his pride led to his downfall. He was unfaithful to the Lord his God, and entered the temple of the Lord to burn incense on the altar of incense. 17 Azariah the priest with eighty other courageous priests of the Lord followed him in. 18 They confronted King Uzziah and said, “It is not right for you, Uzziah, to burn incense to the Lord. That is for the priests, the descendants of Aaron, who have been consecrated to burn incense. Leave the sanctuary, for you have been unfaithful; and you will not be honored by the Lord God.”

19 Uzziah, who had a censer in his hand ready to burn incense, became angry. While he was raging at the priests in their presence before the incense altar in the Lord’s temple, leprosy broke out on his forehead. 20 When Azariah the chief priest and all the other priests looked at him, they saw that he had leprosy on his forehead, so they hurried him out. Indeed, he himself was eager to leave, because the Lord had afflicted him. 21 King Uzziah had leprosy until the day he died.

Rabbinic sources say that when Uzziah became powerful, he grew so arrogant he acted corruptly, he trespassed against God by entering the Temple to offer incense in a rite that could only be performed by priests. The priests confronted the king. They told him to get out of the Temple. He got angry with them and leprosy broke out on his forehead … and they rushed him out…” There is a Rabbinic principle that when person contracts leprosy they are considered dead. The first words of this Isaiah passage that reads: “In the year that King Uzziah died…” isn’t a reference to Uzziah’s actually death but rather the year in which he became a leper.

His punishment corresponds to his sin. Because of his haughtiness, feeling himself worthy of entering an area of the Temple restricted to priests, Torah commands that as a leper he must be sent away from the Temple and the camp of Israel! A leper, being in the Temple had the effect of making it unclean, defiled. His own sin was quite reflective of his generation. Just like Uzziah, the prosperity and wealth of the people led to their haughtiness. Their pride was more important to them than their faithfulness to God! Their own accomplishments became their idols.

Becoming this light for all nations and people was the purpose for which God had blessed Israel with wealth and security. God intended for Israel to use their new found prosperity towards achieving this great goal. Instead Israel became greedy with its wealth; its society became both affluent and haughty.

This disappointment is reflected in the continuation of the above prophecy 6For you have forsaken the ways of your people, O house of Jacob. Indeed they are full of diviners from the east and of soothsayers like the Philistines, and they clasp hands with foreigners. 7Their land is filled with silver and gold, and there is no end to their treasures; their land is filled with horses, and there is no end to their chariots. 8Their land is filled with idols; they bow down to the work of their hands, to what their own fingers have made. 9And so people are humbled, and everyone is brought low— do not forgive them!

To his dismay, Isaiah now foresees God’s anger and impending punishment of Israel for their misuse of this prosperity. In another chapter God compares God’s own efforts to help Israel prosper to the efforts of a dedicated farmer working hard to assure that his vineyard would produce the finest grapes. Despite the farmer’s tireless efforts, the vineyard produced ‘sour grapes.’ The farmer, so angered and disappointed, decides to allow his vineyard to be trampled upon. So too, God has been angered, for even though God had done everything possible to ensure that Israel would achieve their goal, the exact opposite happened. For the vineyard of the Lord of hosts is the house of Israel, and the people of Judah are his pleasant planting; And He hoped for justice, but behold He found injustice, For equity, but behold iniquity”

So now we have a new ear to hear Isaiah’s call. He reports in the sixth chapter: I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne high and lifted up, and His train filled the temple. 2 Above Him stood the seraphim; each one had six wings: with twain he covered his face and with twain he covered his feet, and with twain he did fly. 3 And one called unto another, and said: Holy, holy, holy, is the LORD of hosts; the whole earth is full of His glory. In reaction Isaiah says: Woe is me! for I am undone; because I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for mine eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts. … 9 And (God) He said: ‘Go, and tell this people: hear ye indeed, but understand not; and see ye indeed, but perceive not. 10 Make the heart of this people fat, and make their ears heavy, and shut their eyes; lest they, seeing with their eyes, and hearing with their ears, and understanding with their heart, return, and be healed.’ 11 Then said I: ‘Lord, how long?’ And He answered: ‘Until cities be waste without inhabitant, and houses without man, and the land become utterly waste, 12 And the LORD have removed men far away, and the forsaken places be many in the midst of the land.

On a first reading it seems that Isaiah sees God’s presence in the Temple surrounded by angels after which God appoints him to be his messenger. But why must such an enigmatic vision precede God’s charge to Isaiah of his mission? When we listen more closely to Isaiah he reports that he saw God himself, on a thrown, high and lifted up, and only the ‘skirts of his robe’ are still in the Temple. The “seraphim” cover their eyes and begin to move their wings. Even the angels’ recitation of “kadosh, kadosh…” reflects that God’s holiness will not allow God to remain in this Temple defiled by the leper Uzziah. Isaiah’s vision is not of God residing in the Temple but that of God actually leaving the Temple. God’s presence that had been once ‘concentrated’ in the Temple, has now left that spot, and instead fills the entire earth!

This suggests that since it is specifically during this vision that Isaiah receives his mission to inform the people that because of their wayward behavior God will soon come and punish them: “…until towns lie waste without inhabitants and houses without people and the ground lies waste and desolate, for God will banish the people…”

In chapter two, during the early years of Uzziah’s reign, the potential existed for the Temple to become the international symbol of God’s presence on earth. Symbolically, this would be represented by the Shechina, God’s holiness, dwelling in the Temple. Becoming this light for all nations and people was the purpose for which God had blessed Israel with wealth and security. God intended for Israel to use their new found prosperity towards achieving this great goal. Instead Israel became greedy with its wealth; its society became both affluent and haughty. Here is the bumper sticker: He hoped for justice, but behold He found injustice, For equity, but behold iniquity” But now that Israel has become haughty, just as Uzziah had to leave the Temple abandoned by God, Israel, now abandoned by God, will be lead out of the promised land into Babylonian captivity.

Is this lesson for us? Have we become affluent and haughty, willing to take inappropriate liberties with God’s creation? In looking in our land would God find for justice? Would God find equity instead of iniquity?

Despite his gloomy predictions, Isaiah’s prophecy concludes on a note of hope. Despite the forthcoming destruction and exile, a remnant shall indeed return. The thirteenth verse reads: 13Even if a tenth part remain in it, it will be burned again, like a terebinth or an oak whose stump remains standing when it is felled.” The holy seed is its stump. Or, is that our call, to seek to be that remnant that grows from a burnt over stump?

Judaism is strictly monotheistic. God is an absolute one, indivisible, and incomparable being who is the ultimate cause of all existence. It follows that so called “foreign gods,” according to the Babylonian Talmud, simply don’t exist. The story of Jonah is grounded in the belief in the imminent God of creation. The story of Jonah is an elaborate presentation of the ethical implications of monotheism. It is a story that leveraged the children of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob out of the limits of their tribalism by learning the meaning of monotheism. On its surface, it is a simple story. It is that of a reluctant Old Testament prophet who is first tossed out of Israel by God then tossed over the railings of a ship by sailors, tossed up on the shore by the big fish and then tossed into the city of Nineveh.

To create the necessary tension, the author of the story has God calling the reluctant prophet to the most pagan places in the whole ancient world, a place well known to all Judeans. That place was Nineveh, the Capitol city of Assyria, the location of King Sennacherib’s palace, home to some six hundred thousand inhabitants. It boasted of the most powerful military force of its day and was a constant threat not only to Israel and Judah but to every other nation of its time. Today, the site of Nineveh is Mosul.

History tells us that the Assyrians worshiped Ishtar: the goddess of fertility, love, sex, war and power. The British Museum displays a spectacular wall relief of the Assyrian siege of Lachesis, arguably Jerusalem at the time of Hezekiah. It shows multiple images of Judeans being impaled and piles of Judean heads – ample evidence that the Assyrian soldiers were paid on a piece work basis. That should make it a bit more understandable that when Jonah received a call from God to preach repentance to the people of Nineveh, instead of obeying and going straight to Nineveh, he went to Joppa and booked passage on a ship heading the absolute opposite way. Who could blame him.

In delving into the story of Jonah I found myself wanting to know what, in the middle of this violent and oppressive culture, enabled its King and the people to hear the message of judgment and grace that Jonah offered?

Along with worshiping Ishtar, the Assyrians also worshiped the goddess Nanshe. She was the goddess of social justice. She nurtured orphans, provided for widows and took in refugees from war torn areas. She guaranteed boundaries, standardized weights and sizes of reed baskets and silver. One hymn about her says: “She is concerned for the orphan and concerned for the widow. She does not forget the man who helps others, she is a mother for the orphan; Nance, a carer for the widow, who always finds advice for the debt-slave; the lady who gives protection for refugees. She seeks out a place for the weak. She swells his collecting basket for him; she makes his collecting vessel profitable for him. For the righteous maiden who has taken her path, Nance chooses a young man of means. Nance raises a secure house like a roof over the widow who could not remarry.

Even among such a near diabolical people there already existed a voice of compassion, a conscience that called Assyrians to the best in themselves. It is so easy for us to dehumanize a people by focusing only on the worst. As ethical monotheists we understand that regardless of whatever a people might call their God, there is only one. And part of that Good News is that the one God, regardless of what name people use for God, God calls each of us to treat each other with love and compassion.

In the first chapter our hero, in disobedience to God’s direction, books passage on a ship going the opposite way that God called him to go. On board ship a great storm rose up. The sailors were afraid and began calling upon their idols to deliver them. They woke Jonah where they found him asleep in the bottom of the ship and asked him to pray to his God to protect them.

Though the sailors cast lots to see who had brought this disastrous storm upon them and the lot fell upon Jonah, he had already admitted that he was a Hebrew and was running away from the Creator God. Jonah asked the men to throw him overboard. At first they resisted and instead they tried harder to bring the ship to land. Finally Jonah convinced them that he was the one whose disobedience had brought punishment upon himself and others around him. Reluctantly the sailors agreed to throw him into the sea.

As soon as Jonah was tossed into the raging sea the storm broke and everything was calm. Chapter two tells us that instead of drowning he was swallowed by a great fish in whose belly he spent three days and nights. When Jonah had had his fill of seaweed and fishy captivity he cried out to God “Those who worship vain idols forsake their true loyalty.” God spoke to the fish who promptly vomited Jonah out onto dry ground.

Being alive and on dry land Chapter three has God repeating Jonah’s commission. He made his way to the city of Nineveh where he declared the judgment of God on the residents. After that he climbed to the top of a mountain to watch the Lord destroy them.

But here’s the problem. The king and people of Nineveh took Jonah seriously. They put on sackcloth and ashes and showed that they truly repented of their wickedness. But now we need to focus on Jonah rather than the people of Nineveh. I harbor a suspension that Jonah feared all along that that would the case? He knew that God is merciful and offers grace to all who ask. For most of the Jewish Scriptures God is understood as a tribal God — The God of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, the God of Israel, our God. This is the God who actively fights for the tribe, as in the story of the Exodus. But over time the people’s understanding of God matured.

The Jews come to re-understand God as much more than a tribal God, they begin to grasp that God as, well, God, wasn’t just the God of Israel but of all creation. And I have to believe that they begin to see others in a different way. This isn’t as difficult for us because we have Jesus saying: You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be children of your Father in heaven; for he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous. For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? And if you greet only your brothers and sisters, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same? (Matthew 5:43-47)

Jonah wasn’t there. He loathed these people to whom he was sent to declare judgment and mercy. He decided that his role was to make the necessary pronouncements and then sit back and watch the destruction these people rightfully deserved. And then when it doesn’t play out the way he’d hoped and expected, that is these, oh, what’s the recent appellation, oh yes, these ‘deplorables’ actually turn their lives around and receive grace from almighty God– Jonah is dismayed. Imagine. Preaching Good News, having it received by open hearts and not celebrating. “O Lord! Is not this what I said while I was still in my own country? That is why I fled to Tarshish at the beginning; for I knew that you are a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love, and ready to relent from punishing. 3And now, O Lord, please take my life from me, for it is better for me to die than to live.”

No, he had the quintessential pity party, worms and all. God had to teach Jonah a lesson, a lesson that is for us as well. Where he went to watch the imminent destruction God let a bush grow up to protect Jonah from the hot sun. And then, just as unceremoniously, God commissioned a worm to killed it. Jonah again wanted to die. was more concerned about the injustice of God killing an innocent plant than for the untold thousands who where spared God’s punishment. “You are concerned about the bush, for which you did not labor and which you did not grow; it came into being in a night and perished in a night. 11And should I not be concerned about Nineveh, that great city, in which there are more than a hundred and twenty thousand persons who do not know their right hand from their left, and also many animals?”

Can that be us? Finally, God had Jonah’s attention. The concluding story about the bush is a wonderful illustration of what it looks like to put our trust in politics rather than God. Jonah is obsessed with the inanimate and temporary plant while God has been busy saving a city full of people about which Jonah doesn’t give a rip. God showed Jonah the foolishness of the fact that he was more concerned for the gourd than he was for the people. The gourd, which had no soul, received more attention from the prophet Jonah than thousands of people who were destined to eternal punishment.

Even though these Assyrians were clearly Gentiles, we learn, along with Jonah, that all the earth belongs to God; that God isn’t blind to corruption and oppression and all forms of evil where ever it is occurring; and God cares for all the people Gentile and Jew alike. God is merciful, not just to his chosen but even to worst of humanity you can imagine.

In literature the term everyman has come to mean an ordinary individual who is placed in extraordinary circumstances and with whom the audience or reader is able to easily identify. Jonah is our everyman. What lessons do we learn about ourselves from him? Right now, hours away from counting votes, I think there are people on both sides of the fray who have taken a page from Jonah and expect to sit back and watch people get what they deserve. It’s not a pretty picture.

How do we move past a tribal God? How do we love our enemies and accept that God also loves them? Once we see that God is not just the God of our tribe, our people, the God of those who are like us then we are forced to admit that maybe we should love them.  Even if for no other reason than God loves them. When we recall the horrible cost of hatred and fear of the other, it is good to remind ourselves that we have moved past a tribal God. And that God calls us to a higher way of living.

For our Jewish neighbors Yom Kippur, their Day of Atonement, fell this year on October 11th and 12. Five days after Yom Kippur, they entered a week long festival call Sukkot. Sukkot is a Hebrew word meaning “booths” or “huts.” This distinct traditional festival takes seriously the commandment in Leviticus 23:42 that all who are born Israelites are to dwell in booths seven days. So they erect flimsy, makeshift, temporary small shelters in which to live. It is the Jewish festival of giving thanks for the bounty of the earth during the fall harvest. It’s a time to pray for all the peoples of the world remain safe and prosperous, for those who struggle with terrorist to be vigilant and that those who foment violence to change their ways. It calls attention to the frailty and transience of life and in the end our dependence on God. But more to the point it reminds contemporary Jews of what it was like for their ancestors as they wandered in the wilderness for forty years.  Last Sunday was the last day of Sukkot.

II Samuel 5, tells us that when David was 37-years-old his men captured from the Jebusites the centuries old “stronghold of Jerusalem.” He began an extensive building program in Jerusalem which he renamed “the City of David.” II Samuel 7 tells us that Now when the king (That’s David.)was settled in his house, and the Lord had given him rest from all his enemies around him, the king said to the prophet Nathan, “See now, I am living in a house of cedar, but the ark of God stays in a tent.” Nathan said to the king, “Go, do all that you have in mind; for the Lord is with you.”

David knew what it was like to live alfresco. As a youth and then as a young man, when his family put him to shepherding in the wilderness, he lived in a tent. After he was anointed by Samuel as the successor to Saul  as part of the national military and then as a leader of the insurrection he had lived in tents. And now, after God had brought him through all the struggles and the land was at peace David was living in luxury – in a house made of cedar – which was the finest residential construction available.

After Nathan told David to go ahead and build God a house he got a wake up call from God. “Go and tell my servant David: Thus says the Lord: Are you the one to build me a house to live in? I have not lived in a house since the day I brought up the people of Israel from Egypt to this day, but I have been moving about in a tent and a tabernacle. Wherever I have moved about among all the people of Israel, did I ever speak a word with any of the tribal leaders of Israel, whom I commanded to shepherd my people Israel, saying, “Why have you not built me a house of cedar?”

Without any prayerful consideration Nathan had glibly told his King that whatever he’d like to do would certainly be pleasing to God. If David wanted to take God out of a tent and build for him a temple, what could be wrong with that? For some reason God’s response was “Thank you David, but no thank you.” And Nathan had to go back and deliver that message to his King.

Was God questioning David’s motives? Or was it something about God that caused David’s offer to be rejected? Or maybe both? In practical terms a house for God would be a permanent home for the Ark of the Covenant, the iconic symbol of God’s presence with Israel.  Since the extraordinary march from Sinai the Ark preceded the people, especially when they crossed the Jordan river into the promised land on dry ground.  It was carried around the city of Jericho before the walls fell.  Joshua with all the people in attendance set up the Ark as a ritual site in the ancient city of Shiloh. In the futile attempt to enlist God’s help in defeating the Philistines 1st Samuel tells us that the Ark was brought from Shiloh to lead the army into battle. After twice being defeated by the Philistines they captured it. Each place where the Philistines kept the Ark misfortune happened, all the way from an outbreak of boils, to hemorrhoids to an infestation of mice. After seven months of one misery after another the Philistines returned the Ark to the Israelites. It was left in a field in Judah until the curious neighbors looked into it which result in the whole community being afflicted. They petitioned to have it removed. It spent the next twenty years in the care of Eleazar. It was from here that David decided to have had it moved to Jerusalem. On its way one of the drivers of the cart on which the Ark was carried was smitten when he put out his hand to keep the Ark from falling. Instead of carrying the Ark on to Jerusalem, fearful of it and its power David left the Ark with Odeb-edom for three months. When it’s new keeper prospered greatly David changed his mind and had the Ark brought to Jerusalem.

We could imagine David thinking that if God was given a place of God’s own God would be grateful and bless David even more than he had already. Or maybe he thought that if God had God’s own place God would have some interest in keeping the city of Jerusalem and the nation of Israel safe. One thing seems certain, David brought the Ark to Jerusalem to consolidate his authority as the civil and religious leader and solidify his support in the nation. Having heard the stories and now having seen the power of the Ark David realized that such power independent from his rule as King could be a problem. To provide a permanent home he would, like those before him, benefit from its power but to do so he had to domesticate God’s power. Regardless of David’s agenda, what is clear is that he is told it wasn’t for him to build a box which would hold God.

In responding to David, the first thing God explains is that God never commanded any of Israel’s leaders to build for him a house. God seems to be just fine with the tabernacle. What do you think of the notion that the people of God are, as is God’s own self, not meant to be settled in houses of cedar. What is symbolized by God’s preference for an uncertain structure of the four walls of a temporary dwelling?

In the time of Jesus the people of Galilee were the most religious Jews in the world, they were most highly educated in the Scriptures. More famous Jewish teachers came from Galilee than any other place. Interpretation of Scripture was debated with enthusiasm. It was into that environment that Jesus was born, educated and spent his ministry. Local synagogues hired teachers who were called ‘rabbi’ and though he had responsibilty for the education of the village they were only authorized to teach accepted interpretations of the law. Children began their studies of the Torah at age 4 or 5 memorizing large portions of it.  The best students continued their studies including the prophets and writings and began to learn the interpretations of the Oral Torah. A very few of the most outstanding students were allowed to study with a famous rabbi – they were called disciples. Their teachers saw themselves as passing on a life style to their students. This was the route Jesus took to be acknowledged as a ‘rabbi’. Unlike most rabbis, Jesus appears to be a type of rabbi believed to have the authority to make new interpretations and pass legal judgments. Crowds were amazed because Jesus taught with authority not as their Torah teachers (Matt. 7:28-29). Jesus said that he didn’t come to do away with God’s Torah or Old Testament, he came to complete it and to show how to correctly keep it. One of the ways Jesus interpreted the Torah was to stress the importance of the right attitude of heart as well as the right action (Matt. 5:27-28).  This is one of the most significant concepts of the New Testament. Jesus, the divine Messiah,  taught like a rabbi. He interpreted God’s word and completed it. He demonstrated obedience to it. He chose disciples whom he would empower to become like him and led them around until they began to imitate him. Jesus showed his contemporaries and us that God can’t be domesticated and interpretations of the Words of God were not stagnant and unchanging but alive and applicable to a changing world. The Sabbath, Jesus said, was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.

As lovely as is the image of the dove, Celtic spirituality found that the wild goose was a much more appropriate symbol of the Holy Spirit. Wild geese are, well, wild. Untamed, uncontrolled. They make a lot of noise and have a habit of biting those who try to contain or capture them. That has been the experience of Christians with the Holy Spirit for over two thousand years. Repeatedly, when an orthodoxy has taken firm control of the religious establishment, the Spirit of God has broken free and has often bitten those who tried to constrain it. Our understanding of the ongoing work of the Holy Spirit is simply that such spiritual reality extends to us today. Nathan had to tell David, Thus says the Lord: Are you the one to build me a house to live in? I have not lived in a house since the day I brought up the people of Israel from Egypt to this day, but I have been moving about in a tent and a tabernacle. Wherever I have moved about among all the people of Israel, did I ever speak a word with any of the tribal leaders of Israel, whom I commanded to shepherd my people Israel, saying, “Why have you not built me a house of cedar?”  Could it be that we need to hear the same message as we attempt to shore up established and acculturated orthodoxy rather than being open to the fresh breathings of God’s spirit.?

In the Sixty ninth Psalm David describes himself as a poor, despised and lowly individual who lacks even a single friend to comfort him. More numerous than the hairs on my head are those who hate me without reason… Must I then repay what I have not stolen? Mighty are those who would cut me down, who are my enemies without cause… It is for Your sake that I have borne disgrace, that humiliation covers my face. I have become a stranger to my brothers, an alien to my mother’s sons. … Those who sit by the gate talk about me. I am the taunt of drunkards… Disgrace breaks my heart, and I am left deathly sick. I hope for solace, but there is none; and for someone to comfort me, but I find no one. They put gall into my meal, and give me vinegar to quench my thirst…

This is the voice of a tormented soul who has experienced untold humiliation and disgrace. How can this be the voice of the mighty, righteous and beloved servant of God? At what point in his life had he felt so alone, so disgraced, and so undeserving of love and friendship? In this Psalm he reveals that he was shunned by his own brothers (“I have become a stranger to my brothers”), the subject of gossip by the Torah sages who sat in judgment at the gates (“those who sit by the gate talk about me”) and ridiculed by the drunkards on the street corners (“I am the taunt of drunkards”)? Of what was David guilty arouse such ire and contempt?

It isn’t until the Prophet Samuel makes an unusual and unexpected visit to Bethlehem that we first meet David. Samuel invites the elders of the community and the head of the supreme court of Torah law, the most distinguished leaders of his generation, Jesse to a feast to anoint a new king to replace the rejected King Saul. The elders feared that Samuel had somehow learned of some grievous sin taking place in their town. Jesse became anxious when Samuel inexplicably invited his sons to attend the feast. Samuel’s big surprise was that the new king would be one of Jesse’s sons.

Ist Samuel 16:4 Samuel did what the Lord commanded, and came to Bethlehem. The elders of the city came to meet him trembling, and said, “Do you come peaceably?” 5He said, “Peaceably; I have come to sacrifice to the Lord; sanctify yourselves and come with me to the sacrifice.” And he sanctified Jesse and his sons and invited them to the sacrifice.

6When they came, he looked on Eliab and thought, “Surely the Lord’s anointed is now before the Lord.” 7But the Lord said to Samuel, “Do not look on his appearance or on the height of his stature, because I have rejected him; for the Lord does not see as mortals see; they look on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart.” 8Then Jesse called Abinadab, and made him pass before Samuel. He said, “Neither has the Lord chosen this one.” 9Then Jesse made Shammah pass by. And he said, “Neither has the Lord chosen this one.” 10Jesse made seven of his sons pass before Samuel, and Samuel said to Jesse, “The Lord has not chosen any of these.” 11Samuel said to Jesse, “Are all your sons here?” And he said, “There remains yet the youngest, but he is keeping the sheep.” And Samuel said to Jesse, “Send and bring him; for we will not sit down until he comes here.” 12He sent and brought him in. Now he was ruddy, and had beautiful eyes, and was handsome. The Lord said, “Rise and anoint him; for this is the one.” 13Then Samuel took the horn of oil, and anointed him in the presence of his brothers; and the spirit of the Lord came mightily upon David from that day forward.

After Samuel scrutinized Jesse’s sons a Jewish text says that he asks: “Are these all the young men? That’s slightly different from the text with which we are familiar. He chose his words carefully. Had he asked Jesse if these were all his sons Jesse would have been quick to answer in the affirmative. To Jesse’s mind he had no other sons. He says “There remains yet the youngest, but he is keeping sheep.” The Jewish translation says “There is the smallest, but he is keeping sheep”. By small he meant of little or no consequence. He was hoping that Samuel would allow David to remain where he was, out of sight, out of trouble, tending to the sheep in the faraway pastures. According the the Jewish Madrash, Jesse did not give David the status of a son.

When David was born into this prominent family his birth was greeted with utter derision and contempt. In the psalm David says, “I was a stranger to my brothers, a foreigner to my mother’s sons . . . they put gall in my meal, and gave me vinegar to quench my thirst.” He was not permitted to eat with the rest of his family. He was given the task of shepherd and sent to pasture in dangerous areas full of lions and bears because they hoped that a wild beast would come and kill him while he was performing his duties.

Jesse was the leading Torah authority of his day. He was also the grandson of Boaz and Ruth. His grandmother, Ruth, was a convert from the nation of Moab. Because Moab was the nation that refused the Jewish people passage through their land when they wandered in the desert and cruelly refused to sell them food and drink, the oral Torah specifically forbade an Israelite to marry a male Moabite convert yet seemed to exempt female Moabite converts. Tradition actually has it that, on the night of his marriage to Ruth, Boaz died. Ruth had conceived and subsequently gave birth to Oved, Jesse’s father. During Ruth’s lifetime many raised questions about the legitimacy of her marriage to Boaz. Some rabble-rousers claimed that Boaz’s death verified that his marriage to Ruth had indeed been forbidden.

Late in life doubt gripped Jesse’s heart gnawing away at the very foundation of his existence. His integrity argued that if his status of being a veritable Israelite was in question he was not permitted to stay married to his wife, Nitzevet bat Adeal (neat so vich), unquestionably an Israelite herself. Disregarding the personal sacrifice, Jesse concluded that the only solution would be to separate from her, no longer engaging in marital relations.

Afterward Jesse longed for a child who, unlike his seven sons, would have unquestionable Jewish ancestry. His plan was to engage in relations with his Canaanite maidservant, the off spring of which would be legitimate according to the most stringent interpretation of the Torah. The maidservant was aware of the anguish of her mistress, Nitzevet and understood her pain in being separated from her husband for so many years. She also knew of Nitzevet’s longing for more children. The empathetic maidservant secretly approached Nitzevet and informed her of Jesse’s plan, suggesting that they should replicate the actions of Leah and Rachel and switch places.

Nitzevet took the place of her maidservant and that night she conceived. Jesse remained unaware of the switch. After three months, Nitzevet’s pregnancy became obvious. Incensed, her sons wished to kill their apparently adulterous mother and the “illegitimate” child that she carried. Nitzevet, for her part, would not embarrass her husband by revealing the truth of what had occurred and chose to keep a vow of silence.

Unaware of the truth behind his wife’s pregnancy, but having compassion on her, Jesse ordered his sons not to touch her. “Do not kill her! Instead, let the child that will be born be treated as a lowly and despised servant. In this way everyone will realize that his status is questionable and, as an illegitimate child, he will not marry an Israelite.”

From the time of his birth Nitzevet’s eighth son was treated by his brothers as an abominable outcast. Noting the conduct of his brothers, the rest of the community assumed that this youth was a treacherous sinner full of unspeakable guilt. On the infrequent occasions that Nitzevet’s son would return from the pastures to his home he was shunned by the townspeople. If something was lost or stolen, he was accused as the natural culprit, and ordered, in the words of the psalm, to “repay what I have not stolen.”

Only one individual throughout David’s youth was pained by his unjustified plight, and felt a deep and unconditional bond of love for the child whom she alone knew was undoubtedly pure. This was his mother who felt the intensity of her youngest child’s pain and rejection as her own. Torn and anguished by David’s unwarranted degradation, yet powerless to stop it, Nitzevet stood by the sidelines, in solidarity with him, shunned herself, as she too cried rivers of tears, awaiting the time when justice would be served.

When the messenger went out to bring David home from the fields, out of respect for the prophet David first goes home to wash himself and change his clothes. Unaccustomed to seeing David at home his mother asked, “Why did you come home in the middle of the day?” David explained the reason, and Nitzevet answered, “If so, I too am accompanying you.” When David arrived at the festival Samuel doubted whether David could be the one worthy of the kingship. God commanded Samuel, “My anointed one is standing before you, and you remain seated? Arise and anoint David without delay! For he is the one I have chosen!” As Samuel held the horn of oil, it bubbled, as if it could not wait to drop onto David’s forehead. When Samuel anointed him, the oil hardened and glistened like pearls and precious stones. As Samuel anointed David, the sound of weeping could be heard from outside the great hall. It was the voice of Nitzevet, David’s lone supporter and solitary source of comfort. Her twenty-eight long years of silence in the face of humiliation were finally coming to a close. At last, all would see that the lineage of her youngest son was pure, undefiled by any blemish. Finally, the anguish and humiliation that she and her son had borne would come to an end. Facing her other sons, Nitzevet exclaimed, “The stone that was reviled by the builders has now become the cornerstone!” (Psalms 118:22)

How the Book of Exodus begins seems strangely contemporary. An ethnic group which had migrated to Egypt became so numerous that some Egyptians worried that should war break out with one of their neighbors these aliens would become a fifth column which could join with their enemies to take over their country. Believing that the immigrants had grown too many and too strong, Egyptian leaders took steps to stop their growth and limit their influence. They were declared slaves and task masters were set over them to oppress them with forced labor. In the face of this treatment the immigrant group grew even stronger and the locals came to fear and loathe them. And that’s just the first 12 verses.

By the time you get to the fifth chapter, after Moses confronts Pharaoh about his ill treatment of the Israelites, the treatment becomes more intense and the people hate Moses, their champion. God voiced a great promise which Moses shared with the people about emancipation and a land of promise. His own people wouldn’t listen to him. That’s when we hear Moses say: “Why did you send me to these people?”

What follows, as you recall, is a series of plagues during which Pharaoh remains obdurate. The story gets confusing because somewhere in those passages, without explanation, Moses gains stature with Pharaoh’s court and the Egyptians become well disposed toward the Israelites. But still Pharaoh wouldn’t let them leave, even to go worship. The last straw was God telling Moses that God would make a distinction between Israel and Egypt by taking the life of every first born Egyptian. We covered that story a couple of weeks ago when we talked about the Passover which resulted in the Egyptians demanding that the Israelites leave.

Once in the desert, things didn’t go well. Several times the people threaten to string Moses up for making them leave Egypt. When they got to Sinai God spoke directly to them – delivering the first recitation of the Ten Commandments. After that the people pleaded with Moses to talk with God on their behalf because they were too fearful to have God speak to them directly.

Respecting to the people’s request, Moses goes to be alone with God. The text of the report of that meeting is littered with the phrases “Do not” and “You must” like pepper on mash potatoes. Then we read the detailed regulations for the Priesthood. It took a long time for Moses to get all this information. By the time we get to the 32nd chapter, which is our focus for today, and Moses still hadn’t come back down from the mountain the anxiety among the people went off the charts. The people started making demands on Moses’ right hand man, Aaron. Almost everyone calls this passage ‘the Golden Calf incident”. It may be time to give it a new name.

So the text begins:

When the people saw that Moses delayed to come down from the mountain, … as for this Moses, the man who brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him.” Somehow the people hadn’t gotten the memo. To the people’s mind it was the man Moses who brought them up out of the land of Egypt. God made it happen – not Moses. It made we wonder whether we get anxious and impatient when nothing seems to be happening, when our connection to God seems to be off line? And then are we guilty of crediting, or blaming another for something that God has done?

Anyway, the people gathered around Aaron, and said to him, “Come, make gods for us, who shall go before us; I’m told that the Hebrew text uses the singular ‘god’ in reporting the people’s request of Aaron. Aaron’s response is worthy of our attention: Aaron said to them, “Take off the gold rings that are on the ears of your wives, your sons, and your daughters, and bring them to me.” 3So all the people took off the gold rings from their ears, and brought them to Aaron. Back in the twelfth chapter, before the Hebrew children left Egypt, we were told that they plundered their neighbors, so they had gold. The gold that Aaron called for were the earrings of the wives, daughters and the sons. Again, the Hebrew text says that the earrings were torn off ears making it clear that the gold wasn’t given up freely.

How much gold do you imagine Aaron was dealing with? Finding that answer gets us into a huge matter of contention. It’s the question of how many Israelites followed Moses out of Egypt into the desert. Exodus 12:37 gives us the answer but according to Jewish scholarship we’ve mistranslated the text. If you accept the NIV interpretation the number of Jewish emigrees is between two and a half and three million. Scholars who have studied the impact of the immigrating Hebrew children on the promised land say that such a number is impossible. Others who have studied Egypt before and after the Exodus agree that that figure is unrealistic. By defining that illusive word Hebrew word to mean the number of foot soldiers that a tribal unit could muster the result is between 30 and 35 thousand Hebrew children. Now that’s still a good size entourage but certainly not counted in the millions. That equates to twenty to twenty-five thousand women, daughters and sons from whose ears gold earrings were torn. Melted down we are talking about the equivalent of ten bars of gold, clearly enough to mold a nice sized golden calf.

4He took the gold from them, formed it in a mold, and cast an image of a calf; It’s important to remember that the words we next read were not Aaron’s. and they said, “These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt!” The image that Aaron crafted was single and therefore it would be imputing to the Israelites a far greater sin than that of which they were guilty, that of worshiping other gods. 5When Aaron saw this, he built an altar before it; and Aaron made proclamation and said, “Tomorrow shall be a festival to the Lord.” 6They rose early the next day, and offered burnt offerings and brought sacrifices of well-being; and the people sat down to eat and drink, and rose up to revel. Aaron builds an altar to facilitate a festival – not to the Golden Calf, not to other gods, but to the Lord. Some suggests that the golden calf was a reminder of God not a replacement. Others scholars suggest something quite different saying that the golden calf wasn’t made to be an idol, rather it was a pedestal upon which the Lord could be perceived as standing.

Waiting on this passage I came to wonder what god’s we might have standing on the pedestal of our religion?

If we listen to the text where we come out is that, despite what it might have looked like, the partying is a festival to the Lord, those are Aaron’s words; not a worship of other gods or a golden idol. Now that’s a much different picture than we’ve gotten from the sixty year old Cecil B. DeMille movie. But that’s what was going on in the valley. Meantime up on the mountain things are seen quite differently:

7The Lord said to Moses, “Go down at once! Your people, whom you brought up out of the land of Egypt, have acted perversely; 8they have been quick to turn aside from the way that I commanded them; they have cast for themselves an image of a calf, and have worshiped it and sacrificed to it, and said, ‘These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt!

These verses are problematic. The Lord makes the same mistake as the people. “Your people, whom you brought of the land of Egypt” It’s like one parent avoiding responsibility by telling the other that is was ‘your child’ that broke the rules. Moses didn’t bring Israel up out of the land of Egypt. God knows who brought them out of captivity. Secondly, as we just explored, the people hadn’t sacrificed to the calf or other gods but had a festival to the Lord. What are we to make of this? What we do know is God is angry. Instead of seeing the people turn their anxiety about Moses’ delay into a festival to the Lord God accuses them of being stiff necked and worshiping other gods. God tells Moses to go down and deal with them and leave God alone in God’s anger. The text continues:

9The Lord said to Moses, “I have seen this people, how stiff-necked they are. 10Now let me alone, so that my wrath may burn hot against them and I may consume them; and of you I will make a great nation.” The offer may have sounded pretty good, but Moses doesn’t bite. This is quite a change – it’s like God going back on God’s promise to Abram. The Lord tells Moses to leave him alone in his anger. He intends that his hot anger will consume them. But Moses doesn’t leave God alone in God’s anger. Moses does the unthinkable. He challenges God.

11But Moses implored the Lord his God, and said, “O Lord, why does your wrath burn hot against your people, whom you brought out of the land of Egypt with great power and with a mighty hand? 12Why should the Egyptians say, ‘It was with evil intent that he brought them out to kill them in the mountains, and to consume them from the face of the earth’? Turn from your fierce wrath; change your mind and do not bring disaster on your people. 13Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, your servants, how you swore to them by your own self, saying to them, ‘I will multiply your descendants like the stars of heaven, and all this land that I have promised I will give to your descendants, and they shall inherit it forever.’“

What audacity. That’s called reciting the salvation history of the people. Typically it is to the people that their salvation history of God’s promise is repeated. But Moses repeats it to God reminding God of the commitments made to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. And here is the good news:

14And the Lord changed his mind about the disaster that he planned to bring on his people. It’s called intercession and it challenges our idea that God’s intentions are written in stone. It tells us something we might not want to hear about God’s character. Moses doesn’t leave God alone in God’s anger but reminds God of the promises made to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and by extension these same people. Pretty gutsy if you ask me.

Do you think there are lessons for us in this? If God can misinterpret the intent of a people who have risked their lives and livelihood to follow God’s chosen leader into the wilderness – maybe, just maybe we might misinterpret the actions of others? And what of the work of Moses? Staying in God’s company despite God’s anger and confronting God, challenging God, and reminding God of the heart of God’s own character? I want to change the name of this passage from the “Golden Calf incident” to the “Moses changes God’s mind” incident.